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L'JjjjARY OF CONGRESS 

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OPEN LETTER 

to the 

Editor of the Chicago Tribune 

CHICAGO, ILL. 



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INDEPENDENCE MONUMENT IN MEXICO CITT 

Built with millions that should have been used to solve 

the agrarian problem. 






Dear Sir: 

Allow me to make a few comments on your last 
Sunday's (Oct. 15) editorial, in which you assert that 
Mexico is the exposed flank of the United States. 

The belicose attitute which a large number of pub- 
lications in the United States have assumed is based 
on a conception of the Mexican people which cannot 
be more incorrect. 

You have been assuming that you possess conclu- 
sive facts on Mexican sociology, as derived from ob- 
servations made by people who have been able to 
study certain economic phenomena, certain political 
features that have been evident in different periods 
of the Mexican history; but who do not possess the 
ability to understand that there is a great human 
cause of justice in the endeavors of the Mexican mas- 
ses. 

You speak, with more frequency than is necessary, 
of the wealth which foreigners have amassed in Mex- 
ican soil, and you concentrate the obligations which 
this nation and other advanced countries of the 
world have toward Mexico, in the single fact that 
such nations must impose their authority on the 
Mexican people, and compel respect towards that 
wealth. 

The pity of it all is that you seem to firmly believe 
that such doctrine is bound to succeed, and that 
sooner or later, the United States of America will 
dictate to Mexico and to all the Latin-American 
race. 

You seem to be blind to the gigantic movement 
that is going on everywhere, but particularly in 
Mexico, against the long-lived rule of "special in- 
terests." 



And the more you think of the military power of 
this nation imposing itself upon Mexican life, the 
more prejudiced you become. 

There is no other interpretation possible, of the 
ideas you expound and support in the Tribune, 
which seem the chorus part of the tragic-comedy of 
Hearstian megalomania. 

Not only is this form of thought wrong, but it en- 
tails the perdition of America. For America is now 
tired of the "iron" hand and needs — ^Imore urgently 
than can be imagined — a sane current of under- 
standing between the peoples that inhabit this con- 
tinent. 

The CONQUEST of Mexico is an impossible un- 
dertaking. The Mexican people have been tried in 
this hideous experiment of CONQUEST, time after 
time; but all of the conquerors have failed miser- 
ably. 

Spain employed all the methods that could be de- 
vised, and applied them with the most ingenious 
perversity. But they failed. The Inquisition failed. 
The policy of the "closed door:" the policy of cate- 
chism, that of paternalism, and of hypocricy: they 
all failed. 

There is something in the blood of the Mexicans, 
whether you believe it or not, which makes them 
feel with the utmost certainty, that their lands, their 
endeavors, their loyalty, their ingenuity, have in- 
variably been imposed upon, plundered and abused 
by every one who came, shielding themselves with 
the threat of intervention, occupation, conquest. 

Elena de Montijo, a Spaniard, astute and charm- 
ing, caused the ruin of Napoleon III, by making him 
believe that it was possible to conquer Mexico. 
Napoleon failed and paid the price for his mistake, 
at Sedan. 

The United States took a large part of Mexican 
territory by force of arms. Mexico lost, and the 



United States were wise to stop there at tliat time, 
for, had they attempted the wholesale conquest of 
Mexico, encouraged by the success of its first at- 
tempt, the results might have been disastrous for 
the future of America. 

Modern capitalists and modern adventurers of 
all sorts, many of them Americans, obtained num- 
erous concessions from Porfirio Diaz; the majority 
of those concessions CANNOT bear the light of day; 
but the grantees, always thinking that inasmuch as 
the dictator gave them the lands, the oil, the timber, 
the mines, the waters of the rivers, the control of 
certain commodities which the Mexicans believe be- 
long by right to the people of Mexico, and which 
right they are absolutely decided to support and de- 
fend with their lives. But those grantees boast that 
such enormous wealth, such immeasurable natural 
resources, ARE THEIR PRIVATE PROPERTY! 

This Mr. Editor, is the enormity, the lie, the as- 
tounding vicious principle which you, perhaps un- 
consciously, are supporting in your warlike editori- 
als. This is the error on which all your reasoning 
is wrecked. 

This is the far-reaching propaganda which you 
are endeavoring to foster, by means of your edi- 
torials in order to convince this peaceful, industri- 
ous people of the United States that it is their duty 
to fill their minds with contempt for the unfortun- 
ate but often heroic, and frequently abused people 
of Mexico. 

How is it that all your culture, all your experience 
and all your ability as a publisher has been of no 
avail to enlighten you in regard to the Mexican prob- 
lem in its manifold relations with your very ex- 
istence as a nation, and to make you appreciate that 
it is more than anything else, a psychological prob- 
lem? 



How is it that you are ignorant of the fact that 
the United States of America has not, as yet, begun 
its wonderful task, its ONLY MERITORIOUS task, 
that of becolming the moral leader and the friendly 
teacher of all the Indo-Latin peoples south of the 
Rio Grande? 

These peoples have known only your junkers, 
your fortune seekers, your slave-drivers, your get- 
rich-quick schemers of all sorts and varieties, many 
of them NOT WANTED here because they were 
crooked or because they played politics in the way 
in which your crooks usually play that game. These 
peoples south of the Rio Grande, Mr. Editor, know 
very few indeed of your upright, honest, sound 
business men; and you can be sure, as all of us 
Mexicans are, that such men are honored and re- 
spected there as here, and that they have always 
been honored and respected by the Mexicans. 

It is distressing that you do not understand these 
truths, and it is appalling that you should think 
it easier to create fear in the bosom of the great 
number of Mexicans by means of a display of force, 
than to inspire respect and friendship by means of 
the invaluable assistance of your good moral qual- 
ities. 

It is sad that you cannot see the facility with 
which you could protect the Mexican flank (your 
weak flank), with the assistance and determined 
co-operation of millions of Mexicans against any 
possible foe; the good will with which your armies 
would be permitted to enter Mexico acclaimed by 
the Mexican people en masse, as the soldiers of 
liberty and justice, and heartily supported by the 
valiant Mexican army, against any or many Euro- 
pean crowned heads, IF only you could be cured 
of your piteous blindness; IF only you knew sofme- 
thing about the things of which you are most ab- 
surdly ignorant: MEXICAN SOCIOLOGY. 



Your friendship toward all of the Indo-Latin pop- 
ulation of America and not your feverish ambition 
for the possession of the natural resources of Mex- 
ico and South America, means the salvation of Amer- 
ica and the EDUCATION OF AMERICA, 

Your tongue is almost tired of repeating those ap- 
parently very convincing words which we hear you 
utter every day, namely; bandits, outlaws, assassins, 
greasers, treacherous chieftains, etc. You use these 
epithets to designate Mexico and her nationals. Your 
pride feels satisfied at the energy of your contempt; 
your vanity rejoices in the conclusiveness of the as- 
sertions which you support with what you consider 
convincing proofs, and you then permit the weight 
of your haughty judgment to crush a people whom 
you consider helpless and destitute of hope. 

You say PEON and the rictus of your mouth is the 
same which distorted the face of the Spaniard of the 
eighteenth century, who considered himself as the 
divinely appointed master of the Indian. 

You say AMERICAN PROPERTY, and the nasal 
sound of these imperious words seems to invite the 
swelling of chests and to lead autolmatically to think 
of guns and dreadnoughts. You say MEXICAN 
PEOPLE, and all the mistakes and misery of this 
groping human nature of ours appear enlarged be- 
fore your eyes, which contract with an expression 
of unutterable contempt. 

Still, there is hardly an American who has lived in 
Mexico, even during this difficult period, Who is 
blind and prejudiced and ignorant enough to deny 
that he has been charmed by the beauty and gentle- 
ness and unquestionable mental values of the Mexi- 
can people as a whole, since the first moments of 
his visit in that republic. 

It takes but a few minutes for a well-meaning 
American and a Mexican to talk to each other and 
to become very good friends. 

. 6 



There are friendships between Mexicans and Am- 
ericans which have lasted a lifetime. At the present 
time, there are Americans by the score who will not 
leave Mexico, and who have nothing to fear from 
the Mexicans, because those Americans CAN UN- 
DERSTAND. 

The Mexican social revolution against the brutal- 
ity of the Catholic church, against the injustice of 
special privileges, and of foreign monopolies, is a 
revolution that no human power can stop. The vio- 
lence employed and the atrocities committed are no 
more grievous than those committed by any other 
liberty-seeking people upon this earth, and looking 
at it from an impartial point of view, it is an amaz- 
ing fact that in the midst of the absolute disorgani- 
zation which followed the downfall of Huerta and 
the rebellion of Villa against Carranza, a govern- 
ment could be evolved and all the services of civi- 
lized life be quickly set afoot. 

You seem unaware of the fact that, during the 
darkest and most afflictive stages of the struggle, 
when different factions were contending, when the 
most absolute financial depression embarrassed the 
whole of our national life, the plans for the reform 
of the public schools of the country were formed and 
carried out successfully. 

You DO NOT KNOW that to-day there are 
TWENTY TIMES as many SCHOOLS in Mexico as 
there were in the times of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz. 

You never refer to the tremendous difficulties that 
the Mexican people have overcome in order to force 
the old aristocrat, and the old, grouchy, libidinous, 
fanatic "hacendado" into the necessity of working 
with his own hands, in order to merit the respect of 
his former slaves, to whom he can shout his orders 
no longer, and whose daughters he no longer can 
ruin without facing trial. 

I say to you, Mr. Editor, of the Tribune: You know 




016 241 8'^9 

nothing about Mexico, and Jie contem^ ..__ 

you express yourself in regard to the right to inde- 
pendence of that nation, is positively disappointing. 

Mr. Hearst has succeeded in making his name 
honestly, openly and heartily hated throughout 
Mexico. The rich and the poor, the ignorant and 
the educated, the big and the small, ALL OF THEM, 
know Mr. Hearst as the moat noisy, extravagant and 
gasconesque of American junkers. 

You have started with a firm step to walk in Mr. 
Hearst's path, and that is your own sacred privilege. 
But allow me to tell you that there will be no such 
a thing as the conquest of Mexico by the American 
people, because the great majority of the American 
people has nothing in coimmon with the Wall Street 
money fiends; because the American people, as I 
have been able to observe during the many years 
it has been my privilege to live among them, is a 
people which loves justice, despite the fact that the 
modern fever for accumulating wealth possesses 
the whole nation and despite the fact that the spirit 
of gain which also has attacked you and me — per- 
meates the most praiseworthy endeavors of this 
country and many European nations, equally well- 
intentioned. 

I know that the American people is confronted at 
the present time by problems almost as tremendous 
and baffling as those which the Mexican people is 
trying to solve. 

I know that at the bottom of the popular feeling 
in these two nations, there exists that hulman quality 
of sympathy which will survive all the efforts to 
smother it made by the junkers, those odious traf- 
fickers on international hatreds. 

And I know that the Mexican people is unconquer- 
able, because the Mexican people forms one of the 
most patriotic and liberty-loving nations of the 
world. M. DEL Carpio, 



